1. Field of the Invention
This present invention relates to a technique for improving text/graphics resolution based on boundary parameterization which may advantageously employ a look-up table (LUT) addressed by a chain-code to achieve fast, high-quality rendering on laser printers and other print/display media. The technique may be embodied in software, hardware or combination thereof and may be implemented on a computer or other processor-controlled device. The invention also relates to the structure and construction of a chain-code-addressable LUT for use with the resolution-improving technique.
2. Description of the Related Art
Frequently, a digital representation composed of text and/or graphics that has been generated at a low resolution has to be rendered at a much higher resolution offered by printers and other high resolution devices. For example, such a text/graphics digital representation when displayed on a computer screen is rendered at the resolution of the screen, which is usually much lower than that of a printer. Screen resolution is typically about 70 dots per inch (dpi), whereas a printer typically has a resolution of 300, 600 or 1200 dpi. Thus, in order to produce the digital representation on the printer or other high resolution device it is necessary to perform a resolution conversion when the representation is sent to such device.
There are various techniques for performing the resolution conversion. With one technique, which utilizes scalable fonts, text information is sent to the printer in terms of angles, enabling the printer to increase the resolution. However, even with this technique, the printer is usually not able to print at its highest resolution, since the fonts are scaled up in dpi resolution, but a printer has an even higher resolution than its smallest dot. A single dot may itself be divisible into multiple sections. Other techniques are available which preserve or improve quality during the resolution conversion, but these techniques are slower, more complex and/or more memory intensive than is desirable.